The Dead Man Downstairs
by raichley
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is dead. Or is he? When an Interpol agent turns up dead in an apartment building in Lyon, France, one of Sherlock's fans may discover the truth. *OUTSIDER NARRATIVE, ONESHOT. Post-Reichenbach, pre-Empty Hearse.


**AN: This story takes place in France. My OCs are all French, except for the dead one, who was Italian. Therefore they would be speaking in French. The dialogue is in English, but to make it more authentic I have tried to include small parts of French in this, such as _Bonjour_ or _Oui_. However, I am extremely bad at French and dropped it two years ago (I shouldn't have. I'm worse at German). So if there are any mistakes, please point them out and give me a correction so I can change things. Thanks!**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to Sherlock or any related characters. This story is for entertainment only and I am not making any profit from it.**

Paolo Foresi was dead.

It was strange, how much of an impact that had on me, considering I'd never heard the name before. Foresi was Italian, an Interpol agent – or _Organisation internationale de Police Criminelle_ , as it was called in French – and, before this day, he'd had absolutely no impact on my life.

Living in Lyon, it's not exactly uncommon for Interpol to make the news – their headquarters is in this city, after all. Usually, it's something similar. Someone died. Some big arrest. Something that got a little close to home. It happens, usually a few times per year. Not everyday, but nowhere near never.

But Paolo Foresi was the first dead agent in a while. He'd been dead three days when the story leaked, at least to people in our apartment block; he'd been found in an unoccupied apartment two storeys below the one I shared with my best friend, Claire. It was less than a week before the news was all over the city. And Foresi's unsolved death was my chance, my first chance since _him_.

Claire had warned me against this. "Helena," she'd said, "you're not him. Nobody else could ever be him. Please don't try."

I was going to try anyway.

Eight days after Foresi's death, I had a plan. Living in the same apartment block where the body had been found had its advantages. I could walk right past the crime scene multiple times per day, and nobody would bat an eyelid. They'd just think I was going to the shops, going to see a friend, going to talk to the landlord, as long as I left enough time between my visits.

But I wasn't going to get anything useful by just walking past. The crime scene was sealed off, out of view to the passerby. I was going to have to do something else.

There were always three security officers outside the door when I walked past. The youngest, a dark-skinned male who had to be nearly ten years older than me, was my best bet.

I made my way down the stairs, past the door to the unoccupied apartment, and then – as if the thought had only just occurred to me – I turned back to face the officer.

"_Bonjour_," I said.

He nodded. _"Bonjour_," he replied. "_Avez-vous besoin de quelque chose_?" _Do you need something_?

"_Non_," I told him. "Well, yes, I suppose."

"What is it?" he asked, his eyebrows raising slightly in a questioning – and slightly disparaging – manner.

I paused, supposedly to put together the sentence I'd known I was going to say since last night. "I was just wondering about...you know. How the investigation's going?"

The officer's eyes narrowed. "That's classified information, _madamoiselle_."

"I know, I know," I said quickly, and then gave a moment for hesitation. This had to sound as natural as possible. "I know," I said again, "it's just... It's kind of scary, you know? This happened in my building, _et..._" I let myself trail off there, and when the officer didn't interrupt, but just stared at me with a closed up, almost stern expression on his face, I continued. "I just wondered if you were close to catching whoever did this, is all."

He relaxed. I'd convinced him I wasn't after whatever classified information he had, just reassurance. Step one, complete.

Now, I had to observe.

Observe like he observed, my idol in Britain. The man who's life I followed via his best friend's blog, via online news articles from London. The man in the deerstalker with dark, curly hair and piercing eyes.

I'd followed the story of Sherlock Holmes since I'd read Dr. Watson's blog, just after he posted _The Great Game_. Before people started turning up at his apartment, before the word "client" ever appeared. I was one of the first. And then, when he started becoming famous, London's homegrown celebrity detective, I didn't leave. I was proud of him.

And then Moriarty happened.

Moriarty wasn't real, or so they said. They'd said Sherlock was a fake, a man who wanted to be called a genius. He'd made up Moriarty. He'd made up the crimes, the cases, the criminals. He'd made it all up.

For a minute, I believed them. It made sense, after all. The evidence proved it. The evidence said Moriarty was an actor, that Sherlock had hired him, that Sherlock had never, ever been the genius everyone thought he was.

Except that didn't feel right. Something was off.

"You just don't want to let go," Claire had told me, time and time again. Maybe that was it. I just didn't want to believe it was true. I wanted to believe in Sherlock.

But even if I did, that wouldn't change anything. He'd jumped off the roof of St. Bart's hospital five months ago. He was dead and buried in a graveyard somewhere in London, and even if he'd never been a fake, it was doubtful anyone would ever find the truth now.

The officer nodded. "Okay," he said. "_D'accord._ We are close, we think. We have the best investigating. The best detective. He is very good, _madamoiselle._ Don't worry about it."

And that's when I gave up. Because there was nothing. Nothing I could see, at least. I was sure Sherlock could have seen everything and anything he wanted to, and found the truth in seconds. But, while I saw the officer's tight expression, the way his mouth set in a hard line, I had no idea what it _meant_. And that was something he would know.

Claire was right. I could never be him.

"_Merci_," I told him, and walked off. Just as I reached the stairs, I looked back and saw a man come up to talk to the officer.

"Christophe," the man greeted, in a thick French accent. "_Comment vont les choses_?"

"_Bon apr__è__s-midi_, Pascal," the officer, Christophe, replied, in a voice which implied that whoever Pascal was, he was not welcome. "Things are good here."

I just stared.

Because I was pretty sure Pascal's name wasn't Pascal. I was pretty sure that long coat and curly dark hair belonged to someone else, that those high cheekbones and bright blue eyes had a different name.

"Sherlock," I whispered.

And Pascal's head whipped around to face me, a half-shocked, half-expectant expression on his face, and the name _John?_ on his tongue.

It took him less than a second to realise it wasn't John who whispered his name.

**AN: Hey up! Just in case anyone was wondering who killed Paolo Foresi, since I couldn't explain it in the narrative as Helena would never find out...**

**So Christophe - the security guy Helena, my main OC in this fic, was talking to - is part of Moriarty's web, and Foresi got in the way of what he was doing. He knew more about the case than he was supposed to, which Sherlock had spotted, and he was coming to talk to Christophe to see exactly how suspicious he was. In about three days after this fic, Christophe will be dead.**


End file.
